Life is No Cakewalk for Barry Cutler as Assassin Charles Guiteau

Barry Cutler (far right) plays Garfield assassin Charles Guiteau (below), who marched to his own demented drumbeat.

As assassins go, Charles Guiteau is pretty obscure.  Most people probably haven’t even heard of the president he killed (James Garfield in 1881), let alone Guiteau himself.  But despite Guiteau’s relative anonymity, that doesn’t stop Barry Cutler from playing him as “larger than life” in the Farmington Players production of Assassins.

Barry describes his character as follows: “Imagine if Zig Ziglar were a nutcase and you have Guiteau in a nutshell.  Guiteau’s glass is always half-full, although what he’s full of can’t really be printed here. He fell nothing short of a certifiable lunatic—a psychopath with an ego the size of the Eiffel Tower, if you will. He shot Garfield because the President refused to make him Ambassador to France.”    Barry is used to playing “colorful characters” and Guiteau is no exception, saying, “I’m having a blast with his 'cakewalk to the gallows,’ Guiteau’s funny and final attempt to prove to everyone that he matters. I enjoy the challenge of making this deeply flawed man seem at least a tad human, but certainly not likable.”

With despicable characters and an uncomfortable subject matter, I asked Barry what audiences would enjoy about Assassins?  His answer: “Not all stories are designed to make audiences ‘feel good.’  That being said, all stories should make audiences ‘feel something.’ People will enjoy the show for various reasons, the entertainment value, the glimpse into parts of history they may or may not have previously explored, and the revelation that each assassin is the ‘hero’ of his own story.  While their goals are abhorrent, in their own minds they want what everyone wants – their own version of The American Dream.”

The American Dream is a prevalent theme in Assassins.  As director Mike Smith says,  "Assassins uses these historical characters to shine a light on the promise and failure of the American Dream which, I think, is as valid an analysis today as when it was first produced. … I relate to what the assassins want because wanting is the American Way. It's never easy to get there by following the rules, but it can be done.” Similarly, Barry understands the assassins’ motives, but to him, the ends do not justify the means:  “The assassins believe they have the right to happiness, whether they pursue it or not, and if they don’t get it, it’s everyone else’s fault.  – A warped version of the American Dream. Personally, I don’t buy it. You want happiness, go find it. There’s no need to wallow in self-pity, or to point fingers.”

Barry’s played numerous characters since joining the Farmington Players in 2006, having last appeared on the Barn stage as “Mushnick” in Little Shop of Horrors:  “I joke with Jason Wilhoite (the Balladeer) that this our fourth duet on the Farmington Players stage. If I can stay on two feet cakewalking up the stairs, it could be one of our best.”

The Farmington Players' production of Assassins is proudly sponsored by the Center for Financial Planning, Inc.  The show runs from February 14 – March 1. Tickets can be purchased online at www.farmingtonplayers.org or by calling the box office at 248-553-2955.

Michael Soave is Well-Suited as the Santa Assassin, Samuel Byck

Michael Soave plays the Santa clad assassin, Samuel Byck (below), who attempted to assassinate President Nixon in 1974.

With his GQ look, Michael Soave conveys an image of suave sophistication, which is ironic given that his character in Assassins is anything but. Michael plays Sam Byck, who like many of the outsiders portrayed in the show, “felt the entire world was against him, including the government.” On February 22, 1974, Michael explained that Byck “attempted to assassinate President Richard Nixon by hijacking a 747 airplane and crashing it into the White House.”  (While Byck’s plane never got airborne, he ultimately killed a few people onboard, including himself.)   In the play, the Byck character appears in a Santa Claus suit, which the real-life Sam Byck once wore to a political protest.

In Assassins, Michael describes the Sam Byck character as “an interesting guy; fun-loving, bipolar, narcissistic and crazy. One second I'm jolly and singing a song and in the blink of an eye I turn explosively angry. The sudden shifts in mood are probably what I enjoy the most, but at the same time are the most challenging just because there's so much back and forth with myself. Sometimes it’s even a little scary because acting crazy came a bit to naturally for me.”

In real life, Michael is a stand-up comedian from Detroit, which might explain his crazy side. He is making is theatrical debut in Assassins because “I enjoy Stephen Sondheim's work and I'm also a fan of darker things, so this was right up my alley. Also I find it easier to identify with my character, Byck, just because he's like an everyday Joe. Working odd jobs just to make it by and then all this crap goes wrong in his life. We've all had times in our lives where we thought the world was taking a crap on us. Byck just took it too far.”

While the show does not try to justify the assassins’ actions, Michael explains that Assassins is “full of underdog, anti-hero characters who take it upon themselves to become vigilantes. Everyone loves an underdog story.”  Even if it’s hard to root for them, it is interesting to try to understand each of the assassin’s rationale for doing what they did.  As Michael says, it’s “different for everyone. Some characters want to be remembered, some just want to be noticed and some just want revenge.” 

When he’s not doing stand-up, Michael’s hobbies include magic, juggling and cooking, and watching horror movies. He’s also a self-taught hypnotist. 

The Farmington Players' production of Assassins is proudly sponsored by the Center for Financial Planning, Inc.  The show runs from February 14 – March 1. Tickets can be purchased online at www.farmingtonplayers.org or by calling the box office at 248-553-2955. 

Barbara Bruno Finds her Inner Outsider as Assassin Sara Jane Moore

Barbara A. Bruno plays Sara Jane Moore (below in 1975 after Moore's attempted assassination of President Ford) 

The American Dream is an essential theme of Assassins, a dark Stephen Sondheim musical that explores the minds and motives of nine US Presidential assassins.  With songs like Everyone’s Got the Right (to be Happy) and Another National Anthem, Sondheim shows how people who have been marginalized by American society still try to justify their own actions in the name of the “pursuit of happiness.”  While not condoning the assassins’ actions, Sondheim demonstrates that when their dreams are not fulfilled, the assassins feel justified in making someone pay – in this case, a President.

In the Farmington Players production of Assassins, Barbara Bruno makes her Barn debut as Sara Jane Moore, who fired a shot at President Gerald Ford in 1975.  While this is not your typical “feel good” musical, according to Barbara, she finds that Sondheim’s work “tends to be a little unsettling to audiences, but in a way that is thought provoking. When I read the script for the first time, I had a lot of, ‘Gee, I never knew that’ moments, which can be a gratifying experience.” Barbara describes Moore as having a “really frenetic background, with a number of careers and husbands in her time. She's this odd mix of soccer mom and psychopath. The challenge of this role is to not only make her sympathetic so that the audience can relate to her, but to balance this calm exterior of who she really was with this hectic and flighty scripted interpretation of her.”

Barbara can definitely relate to the play’s message that the American Dream has left many people behind, as she explains: “Not unlike many people in the theater, I was a total outsider well into college. There's a rage that comes from not feeling accepted and feeling marginalized.  I grew up in a fairly well off community, but we never had a lot of money.  I felt the differences in class deeply.  The hardest part is feeling not only like you're excluded and will never have what you perceive everyone else has, but also feeling like you don't matter, and I know that I had my ways of acting out on that.”   In relating this to the characters in Assassins, she says, “What's tragic about these people is that they lacked the power to feel like they belonged and that they mattered.  I think, as a rule, people tend to get in trouble when they look to external signals for acceptance, which is, unfortunately, the most common manifestation of the American Dream.”

Originally from Long Island, Barbara lived in Chicago for 20 years, often working on the production side in the Chicago theater community.  She moved to Michigan about three years ago and has been active backstage at the Barn and appeared in the Barn’s AACT Festival entry as Lita Encore in Ruthless.

The Farmington Players' production of Assassins is proudly sponsored by the Center for Financial Planning, Inc.  The show runs from February 14 – March 1. Tickets can be purchased online at www.farmingtonplayers.org or by calling the box office at 248-553-2955.

Who’s Who in Annie: A 1930s History Lesson

 

FDR in 1933 (at age 51)

Annie opens this Friday at the Farmington Players, and while this holiday classic is a favorite of audiences young and old, the play is set 80 years ago in 1933.  So just as you need your playbill to know who’s who in the cast, you might not know all the historical players in this show without a program.  The following is a glossary of sorts – a list of 1930s people, places and parlance mentioned in the musical – to enhance your play-going experience. (Thanks to Karen Southworth and Jerry Gass for their contributions to this article!)

While everyone knows Franklin Delano Roosevelt (portrayed by yours truly), the members of FDR’s cabinet are not exactly household names. 

• Cordell Hull (Charlie Gass) was FDR’s Secretary of State for 11 years.  He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945 for his role in establishing the United Nations.   

•  Henry Morgenthau (Mark Krumins) was FDR’s Secretary of the Treasury.  Born in NYC, he played a major role in designing and financing the New Deal.  He also shaped foreign policy and his “Morgenthau Plan” prevented Germany from ever again being a military threat.  

• Harold L. Ickes (Jim Snideman) served as Secretary of the Interior for 13 years and was responsible for implementing much of FDR’s “New Deal.”

• Frances Perkins (Anne Craft), Secretary of Labor, was the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet, and served as Secretary of Labor for 12 years. She was largely responsible for the U.S. adoption of social security, unemployment insurance, child labor laws, and federal minimum wage.  

• Louis Howe served as Secretary to the President, a similar role to today’s Chief of Staff.  Howe helped FDR shape the New Deal and the Civilian Conservation Corps. (In our production of Annie, Louis Howe is a woman, Louise Howe, played by Karen Southworth!)

In addition to the political figures, there are many other cultural references in Annie, including the following (source: Wikipedia) to name just a few:

•  Beau Brummell (1778 –1840) was a fashion setter in England.  He is credited with introducing the modern men's suit, worn with a necktie. He claimed he took five hours a day to dress, and recommended that boots be polished with champagne. His style of dress is often referred to as dandyism. As Burt Healy sings, “Your clothes may be Beau Brummelly…”

• Mickey Finn was a 1930s comic strip featuring the exploits of likable Irish-American police officer Michael Aloysius "Mickey" Finn in suburban New York, but a “Mickey Finn” also refers to a drug-laced drink (that the orphans dream of giving to Miss Hannigan).

• Don Budge (1915-2000) was an American tennis player who was the world’s #1 player for five years in the 1930s.  Grace suggests that they get Don Budge to give Annie tennis lessons.

• Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) was a justice of the Supreme Court of the US from 1916 to 1939.  In our production, Chris Falkowski plays the judge, who is summoned to perform Annie’s adoption ceremony.

• Al Smith (1873-1944) was a politician who served as Governor of New York four times, but lost a 1928 presidential bid to Herbert Hoover, as regretted by the residents of Hooverville.

• Friedrich Austerlitz, a/k/a Fred Astaire (1899-1987) was an American film and Broadway stage dancer.  In Annie, the Warbuck servants refer to “Fred and Adele.” Adele was Fred’s sister and first dance partner until she married in 1932, opening the door for his more famous dance partner Ginger Rogers.

• Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) was a 20th-century Chinese political and military leader. His American-educated wife Soong May-ling was known in the United States as "Madame Chiang", who Warbucks wanted to invite to Annie’s party.

•        Fiorello La Guardia (1882-1947) was the Mayor of NYC from 1934-45 and is described in Wikipedia as: "Irascible, energetic, and charismatic, he craved publicity and is acclaimed as one of the three or four greatest mayors in American history."  He was only five feet tall, although in "NYC" he is referred to as the "mayor five-foot-two."

The Farmington Players' production of Annie is proudly sponsored by Mall Malisow & Cooney, PC.  The show runs from December 13 to 29.  Tickets are sold out, but see www.farmingtonplayers.org for information on future shows.

Rachel Biber Lives Her Dream Role as Miss Hannigan

Annie (Maryanna Lauter) and Molly (Hazel Ward) watch Miss Hannigan (Rachel Biber) take her "medicine"

Whether she’s dreaming about the demise of “Little Girls” or scheming with her brother against Oliver Warbucks, there’s just something about Miss Hannigan that resonates with audiences.  She plays the lady we love to hate and yet she is so good at being bad that you can almost sympathize with her at times … almost.   For Rachel Biber of Huntington Woods, playing Miss Hannigan fulfills a lifelong dream:  “I have wanted to do Annie since I first saw the movie with Carol Burnette.  While my sisters were fighting about which one of them got to play Molly or Annie, there was no discussion... I was Miss Hannigan and that was that.  This has been my dream role since I was 5 years old, and I am so thrilled to be here right now talking about this.”

Even though she is perfect for this role, it’s not easy being the bad girl sometimes.  As Rachel says, “I think what I enjoy and the most challenging aspect are one and the same.  Being a villain and being mean to those little girls is so much fun, but they are all so cute and I just adore them all. So as much fun as being allowed to yell ‘SHUT UP’ at a bunch of kids may seem, it can be very tough.”  Annie involves some physical humor between Rachel and the orphans, and at rehearsal she’s always careful to make sure that no one gets hurt.  

Despite Hannigan’s gruff exterior, Rachel is really a softie at heart, and has nothing but kind words for her cast mates: “Maryanna Lauter is wonderful as Annie, and is just such a great kid.  I’ve known her since she was tiny, and it’s so fun seeing her grow into such a talented young lady.  The cast is wonderful.  All of the little girls are fantastic and so much fun to work with, and the grownups are great too.  When I first heard Daniel Murray as Burt Healy start his bit and sing I was absolutely blown away.  I also love getting to play off of talent like Brandon Mace (Rooster) and Elizabeth Bartz (Lilly).  Every rehearsal is fun with them. We are always laughing.”

Rachel is dedicating this performance “to my sisters for being the Annie, Molly and Bundles in all of our living room performances of Annie so that I could always live the Hannigan dream, and to my mom for always being the world’s greatest audience member.”

Rachel has been involved with theater since she was 10. You may have seen her at the Barn in Barefoot in the Park (Corrie), Sweet Charity (Nikki), Gypsy (Louise), and most recently in Legally Blonde (Brooke Wyndham).  Other favorites include RENT (Joanne), A Streetcar Named Desire (Stella), Wonder of the World (Cass), and Sordid Lives (Bitsy Mae Harding). Rachel and her husband Berry are proud parents of Caleb (age 9).

The Farmington Players' production of Annie is proudly sponsored by Mall Malisow & Cooney, PC.  The show runs from December 13 to 29. Tickets are almost sold out and can be purchased online at www.farmingtonplayers.org or by calling the box office at 248-553-2955. 

Third Time’s the Charm for Maryanna Lauter in Annie

Maryanna Lauter is ready to take center stage as Annie, her third time in this show

The Farmington Players’ production of Annie is a “family show” in more ways than one.  The show’s plotline centers on Annie’s search for her birth parents.  The holiday themed classic is certainly family friendly.  But perhaps the strongest family tie is the large number of direct family members who are sharing the stage. I count at least 14 relatives, mostly moms and daughters.  While it can be fun “playing” with mom, for 10 year-old Maryanna Lauter it also adds a little extra pressure. Maryanna plays the title role of Annie, and her mom Amy Lauter co-directs the show with Terie Spencer.  Maryanna admits, “I was a little worried about trying out because my mom was one of the directors.  I like it, but sometimes it's easier to take direction from Terie or other people on the Annie team” rather than her Mom.  

This is Maryanna's third time in Annie, previously appearing in the orphan chorus, and then as Molly (while Amy played Grace in both productions).  Her familiarity with the show definitely helped prepare her for her first title role (“This time I really was hoping to be Annie!”) but Maryanna has really been preparing her whole life to take center stage.  As Amy recalls, “Maryanna has been singing since she was very little ... but I distinctly remember when her ‘light bulb’ went off and she knew it was something she was good at. At age 5 or 6, she worked on music for auditions for Gypsy here at the Barn. She was singing kind of softly, and then the ‘Mama Rose’ in me told her to sing out. She belted it out in our living room, and I remember her saying, "I didn't know I could do that!" She is getting such an early start; I know if she continues to work hard she will achieve so much. I am very proud of her and look forward to seeing the audience react to her.”

My own opinion is that audiences will be blown away to hear such a powerful voice coming from such a “little girl.” Just like Annie, Maryanna’s contagious optimism will win people over. As she says, “I LOVE theatre and music! I hope to be on Broadway one day!” She likes that “Annie is very optimistic - she can turn anything from bad to good!”  Maryanna can also relate to the play’s “message of love, because pretty much everyone ‘falls in love’ with Annie. Ironically, Daddy Warbucks, who at the beginning of the show is not so sure about Annie, by the end he loves her so much he adopts her.”

Maryanna also has kind words for her fellow cast mates: “I just love Rachel Biber who plays Miss Hannigan. She gets to be mean to me in the show and I absolutely hate her in the show, which is the total opposite of real life. Also Dorne LeFere, Daddy Warbucks, is just wonderful. He is so silly in real life during rehearsals, and it's fun to goof around with him. Shannon Groves who plays Grace Farrell and I have so much in common - I love talking to her. She has such a pretty voice too! And all of the orphans are so nice and Hazel Ward is the cutest Molly ever. I love working with all the orphans and it is very fun to be on stage with all of them. We didn't even know each other before and now we are all such good friends.”

The Farmington Players' production of Annie is proudly sponsored by Mall Malisow & Cooney, PC.  The show runs from December 13 to 29. Tickets are going fast and can be purchased online at www.farmingtonplayers.org or by calling the box office at 248-553-2955.

Nomadic Mace Family Feels at Home in Annie

Lily Mace as Tessie

Brandon Mace as Rooster

Nine year-old Lily Mace plays the orphan Tessie in the Farmington Players’ production of Annie.   Lily said, “I know how it feels to not have a place to call home.  Since my Dad is in the Army we have had to move around a lot.  I just turned nine and have already lived in Oklahoma, Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama and now Michigan!”

Lily’s Dad is Brandon Mace, who portrays the villain Rooster Hannigan in Annie.  Brandon said, “We have a home in North Carolina but don't really call anyplace home.”  The Maces are a military family and are here on orders in Michigan for three years.  While it is hard to put down roots, Brandon and Lily “wanted to find a show to do together that was close to where we lived, where we could sing and dance and have a great time.  Lily and I have done theatre separately but now we finally get to be in the same show!  It has been fun to go to rehearsals together and can't wait until the show begins.”

Brandon is an experienced performer and loves his role as the cocky Rooster, saying, “I have played a lot of good/nice guys, so it is fun to play an over the top, ridiculous bad guy.”  For her part, Lily exclaimed with Tessie’s signature line: “Oh my goodness! … This role is so much fun to play.  This is my first community theatre show and that makes it a challenge but I am learning so much and look forward to doing more shows.”

Brandon described Annie as a “classic show that you just can't go wrong with:  Good story, good music and 100% family oriented.”  He can personally relate to Annie’s optimism despite personal hardship: “I think Annie is about looking on the bright side and making the most of what life deals you.  Life is tough for a lot of people today; this show reminds us how important it is to hope for what tomorrow can bring and then get us out there to make it happen!”

Brandon also met his wife Krissi in the theater so it is definitely a family affair.  Brandon has performed professionally in the Washington DC area and locally with the Spotlight Players and Dearborn Theater Guild.  Lily loves dance and takes classes at Center Stage in Northville and has recently started voice lessons. 

The Farmington Players' production of Annie is proudly sponsored by Mall Malisow & Cooney, PC.  The show runs from December 13 to 29. Tickets are going fast and can be purchased online at www.farmingtonplayers.org or by calling the box office at 248-553-2955.